happily ever after
by wild wolf free17
Summary: He cooks for her sometimes. -Nicholas/Mia-
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: happily ever after

**Fandom**: _Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement_

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: spoilers for film

**Pairings**: Nicholas/Mia

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 135

**Point** **of** **view**: third

* * *

He cooks for her sometimes. She'll wake alone in bed, the pillow next to hers empty, and there'll be a rose or note. She'll smile and pull on her robe, head down to the kitchen. Hers is a far more casual palace than her grandmother's had been, and ever since that first summer, no one bats an eye.

He'll have the radio on when she gets there, a different station every time. He never cooks the same meal twice, except for the toast. He'll grin at her and set the plate on the counter before her, walk around it and kiss her soft and slow.

"Good morning, your majesty," he'll whisper into her mouth, one hand on her hip, the other cupping her face. "Breakfast is served."

Those are her most favorite mornings of all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: happily ever after

**Chapter**: II

**Fandom**: _Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement_

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: spoilers for film

**Pairings**: Nicholas/Mia

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 250

**Point of view**: third

* * *

Sometimes, when she really thinks she just can't take anymore and she wants nothing more than to run away from the palace all the way back to San Francisco, he'll walk into the throne room or the meeting room or the grand hall and announce that he simply must see Her Majesty right this moment.

She'll meet his eyes and he'll smile. Rising to her feet, she'll nod to everyone present and stride to him with no hesitation. They'll walk side by side, fingers brushing, until they're in sunlight, and then he'll take her hand.

Sometimes, they just spend time together in the gardens, visiting the archery range or the fountains. Sometimes they leave the grounds, trying for incognito and always failing, and wander the capital, buying trinkets and souvenirs for each other. Each time, he buys her a plastic tiara and she picks out a book of poetry that he'll recite from at a later date.

When she's especially weary of being queen, he leads her to the stables. They always choose the same two horses, and they always canter to the same tree by the pond. Sometimes they dance; sometimes they just hold each other.

At dawn they return to the palace, no matter what their adventures have been. She is ready to resume the place she chose, and she kisses him in thanks.

He catches her hand and presses his lips to her knuckles, and he tells her, "I love you."

And she goes to be queen.


	3. Interlude

**Title**: left standing

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: spoilers for _Princess Diaries 2_

**Pairings**: mentions of Michael/Mia, Nicholas/Mia

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 180

**Point of view**: third

**Prompt**: I like Michael. I just want him to hurt for leaving mia for music career. I just picture him hurting after he sees Mia and nick.

* * *

He watches the wedding, of course. The American-born Queen of Genovia—darling of the world. Almost everyone is captivated by her. She's beautiful and funny and smart and kind. A fairy tale come to life.

It's hard not to love her, and she'd nearly been his. But he couldn't take the paparazzi and the bodyguards, and knowing that every man in the world would be after her. He couldn't take the pressure: she'd be queen one day.

So he left San Francisco with his band, and he watches the wedding from his hotel room in Florida. It's been five years since he saw her face to face, though he's bought every magazine he can find that mentions her.

She looks happy, in her flowing white gown, standing next to some Genovian lord. She looks happy.

As they kiss, Queen and Prince Consort of Genovia, Michael turns off the TV and grabs a notebook, quickly scrawling out a song.

"Left Standing" tops the charts for eight months and every time he sings it, he wishes he'd never left San Francisco.


	4. Chapter 3

**Title**: happily ever after

**Chapter**: III

**Fandom**: _Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement_

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: spoilers for film

**Pairings**: Nicholas/Mia

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 165

**Point** **of** **view**: third

* * *

She misses San Francisco, the salt air, the clouds, the hills. Genovia is beautiful, but so flat and so bright. Plains surrounded by mountains, not at all like home.

Nicholas doesn't understand, she knows. He's spent time all over the world, seen every possible landscape. He's content anywhere. He can't comprehend how much she misses walking up a hill every day. He listens to her stories, the longing clear in her voice, and he researches, shares with her little tidbits he learns about San Francisco, the gold rush and the bay and a history she never actually knew.

For their fifth anniversary, he takes her to San Francisco, and they don't go as Queen and Prince Consort. They are simply Mia and Nicholas, a young couple on holiday, visiting family by the bay.

"I love you," she whispers, standing on the beach and listening to the ocean, wrapped in his arms. "Thank you for this."

He kisses her temple and murmurs, "Happy anniversary."


	5. Interlude 2

**Title**: happily ever after

**Chapter**: interlude 2

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: future!fic

**Pairings**: Nicholas/Mia

**Rating**: PG  
**Wordcount**: 275

**Point** **of** **view**: third

**Prompt**: Nicholas/Mia, Outsider-POV of their relationship

* * *

When Princess Mia became Queen Amelia, everyone wondered what might change, not just in the palace but all over Genovia. She was American, after all, and as sweet as she was, she also had some strange ideas.

(Lionel and Joe struck fear into the hearts of everyone who witnessed Princess Mia running around in her nightgown, and none of those pictures ever saw the light of day. Joe had diplomatic immunity in forty-six countries, you know.)

When Queen Amelia married Lord Devereaux, most Genovians breathed a small sigh of relief. While he had spent many years abroad, he'd been raised in Genovia, so surely he could rein in some of the Queen's wilder ideas.

And at first, that seemed to be the case. He offered up his ancestral home for a second orphanage, along with the royal family's winter palace, and he talked the Queen out of dissolving Parliament. (Everyone but the Queen knew that would have cost her the throne, and possibly led to a revolution, but she'd been stubborn.)

With the birth of their first child, Crown Prince Philippe Rupert, everyone hoped the Queen would settle down, would quit trying to turn centuries of tradition on its head. For a time, she focused on her son and left the running of the country to the Prince Consort.

They all knew, of course, that he was entirely devoted to his wife and so anything he did would have to be approved by her first, and they all loved their Queen. For all her American thinking, she was leading them into the twenty-first century, with a bright smile.

And everyone agreed she looked lovely on the postage stamp.


End file.
